Originally Posted by sbhikes
Nevertheless, discomfort with diamond frame bikes isn't the best or only reason to get a recumbent. Recumbents are fun and there are so many different kinds you'll never get tired of trying them all. Unless you just don't like them, which is fine, too. Chipcom doesn't like them, but at least he tried them.
I'm vaguely interested in recumbents, but I want one where I can still see over the top of most traffic. I haven't seen one with a periscope yet.
Also the roads I ride on are very rough; typically washboarded gravel, bridges that should have been rebuilt decades ago (really, literally, nothing but patches, no original road left). Over parts of my ride, I slow down a lot and do a lot of emergency steering to whip several feet to one side and another to avoid horrendous series of washboarded holes that seem to alternate positions on the road.
Sometimes it's entirely impossible to miss the holes; then I want to go up on legs so they can take the shock rather than my body.
Seems like for that I really want a high center of gravity. Having never ridden a recumbent, I can't say for sure but it seems like if they were good at fast manuvering you'd see them on the off-road trails.